Judge stays execution of young girl's killer

Updated 9:18 pm, Monday, October 8, 2012

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Jonathan Green convicted in the June 2000 slaying of a 12-year-old girl in Montgomery County, north of Houston. He survived an execution date in 2010 when Texas's highest criminal court granted a hearing on whether he was too mentally ill to be put to death.. (AP Photo/Texas Department of Criminal Justice) less

Jonathan Green convicted in the June 2000 slaying of a 12-year-old girl in Montgomery County, north of Houston. He survived an execution date in 2010 when Texas's highest criminal court granted a hearing on ... more

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Handout of missing poster for Christina LeAnn Neal, 12, who disappeared June 21 in the Dobbin community in west Montgomery County. HOUCHRON CAPTION (07/22/2000): Neal. HOUCHRON CAPTION (07/09/2002): Neal.

Handout of missing poster for Christina LeAnn Neal, 12, who disappeared June 21 in the Dobbin community in west Montgomery County. HOUCHRON CAPTION (07/22/2000): Neal. HOUCHRON CAPTION (07/09/2002): Neal.

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Judge stays execution of young girl's killer

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A federal district judge on Monday blocked the execution of Jonathan Green, two days before he was set to die for the 2000 murder of a 12-year-old Montgomery County girl.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas ruled that a state mental competency hearing violated due process standards and that the judge who conducted it applied incorrect standards for determining competency for execution.

"The inadequacies of the state court's process and the resulting constitutional violations require this court to stay Green's execution," Atlas said in her 17-page order.

Green, 44, received a last-minute execution stay two years ago so that his mental state could be explored. In a hearing last year, mental health experts for Green and the state offered differing opinions on his mental competence. State District Judge Lisa Michalk ruled that Green was competent for purposes of execution.

Based on Michalk's finding, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals lifted its 2010 stay, and Green again was given an execution date.

Green's lawyers argued the hearing before Michalk was held so quickly after it was granted - two days later - that medical personnel from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice who had treated Green were not available to testify.

They asked for a delay so those workers could be brought to court. The judge denied the request, which Atlas found unreasonable.

"Considering the heavy reliance the state court's opinion places on its credibility determinations of the two experts and the notable absence of any reference to the TDCJ medical records in the state court findings, the state court's denial to Green of the opportunity to present the TDCJ witnesses casts serious doubt on the fundamental fairness of the competency proceeding," she wrote.

Atlas said her order deals only with the fairness of the process.

"Because the state court unreasonably applied Supreme Court precedent and failed to provide due process, a stay of execution is necessary," Atlas' order stated. "The court here is concerned only with the question whether Green is entitled to a stay of execution and not with the ultimate question of whether he is incompetent to be executed."

A distorted view

Mental illness is not necessarily a bar to execution. But the law requires that a condemned person have a rational understanding of the reason for being put to death.

In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that understanding the literal connection between an execution and a conviction is not enough. Delusional defendants, the court reasoned, might recognize that connection but have a distorted view of the crime or why they were convicted.

Green was convicted in the death of Christina LeAnn Neal, who disappeared while walking home in the rural community of Dobbin on June 21, 2000. A onetime star running back for Montgomery High School, Green was accused of grabbing the girl after she left a friend's house about 100 yards from his home.

Authorities looking into the disappearance learned that Green had burned a pile of trash on his property after the girl's abduction. When investigators began to probe the area around the burned trash, Green ordered them off his property.

They returned shortly with a search warrant, saw a freshly dug hole near the old trash pile and began a thorough search of the premises. Neal's body was found in a gray blanket stuffed into a laundry bag behind a chair in his home.